FixHealthCarePolicy

Putting Party and Vanity Above Country

Like a desperate last-minute Christmas shopper who will grab any gift and pay any price, Congress may rush through a hasty and ill-conceived rewrite of health care legislation. President Obama’s message to Senators seems focused more on party loyal and an appeal to desires for glory than on what Americans want or need.

With public support collapsing all about them (61% in opposition according to CNN’s December polling), Democrats may be motivated by a feeling that they’ve gone too far to turn back now, even if it’s in the wrong direction. They could invoke Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism that “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Franklin, however, had a much nobler purpose in mind—independence from government tyranny.

What’s in the final bill may become immaterial in this Christmas rush. That’s dangerous because the ultimate language remains a mystery after earlier efforts ran afoul of multitudes of objections. The 11th-hour rewrite of the bill will be major version Number Nine since varying editions began surfacing during the summer. With or without a co-called “public option,” it’s certain that the bill will displace millions of Americans from their current private insurance, put Washington in charge of all health care and insurance, and expand the number of people who depend on taxpayers to pay for their coverage. (more…)

Tags: employer mandates, Health Czar, individual mandates, Obama Health Care Plan

Pelosi Bill Slips In $6 Billion Slush Fund

Last week, Speaker Pelosi and the House leadership introduced their 1,900 page health care monstrosity, H.R. 3962. But they have not taken the bill to the House floor as they prepare yet another version called a “manager’s amendment.”

This manager’s amendment will sweep in new provisions targeted to specific members of Congress in order to get their support on behalf of some special interest group. These will be a style of earmarks that may be hard to trace back to its source. Some will be undecipherable, directing more favorable Medicare reimbursement to a particular hospital or the new taxes on a medical device manufactured in a particular congressional district will mysteriously be lowered. The same sort of deal-making will occur on the Senate floor. National advocacy groups that insist there should be no profit in health care will need smelling salts by the time the bill is completed.

One such earmark suddenly appeared in H.R. 3962 in Section 1745, “Nursing Home Supplemental Payment Program.” This provision did not exist when the Committee on Energy and Commerce had completed its work. Section 1745 creates a new $6 billion slush fund with the Medicaid program to dispense to nursing homes. (more…)

Tags: Health Czar, Medicaid, nursing homes, Obama Health Care Plan

Pelosi Plan Would Give Health Czar Super Powers

Among the fallacies in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s health care bill is the pretense that bureaucrats are smarter than the rest of us. An unelected bureaucrat would be given czar-like control over our lives, our health, and our pocketbooks. Even super powers.

This new all-powerful “health choices commissioner” would be entrusted with more power than most superheroes. The laundry list of that special power is proof that it’s a government takeover of health care.

This presidential appointee will both control the new government-run insurance plan AND decide how private insurance companies are to operate, by creating the standards for their coverage and enforcing compliance. Likewise, employer-run health plans would answer to super-czar. (more…)

Tags: Health Czar, Obama Health Care Plan, the Obama Czar State